Why Batswana Love Conferences

My First Botswana Conference

I had heard or read or dreamed before I came here that the Batswana love conferences and it turns out to be true.

It so reminds me of home. I remember when I used to go to a lot of conferences and would stand in whatever hotel lobby the conference happened to be in and read all the signage for the various and sundry groups that were meeting at the same time.

The day I saw the “International Association of Concrete Mixers Annual Conference” or maybe it was the “North American Affiliation of Bio-engineered Seed Distributor’s Board of Director’s Annual Meeting” next to whatever conference I was attending, I realized that America had gotten too complicated, too affiliated, too separatist. To have day long (or longer) conferences on almost any possible topic, just seemed so ridiculous to me. Especially knowing that most people attended as an opportunity to stay in a nice hotel, have tons of information spoon fed to them, have someone else make the meals (ah, conference chicken!), hang out in the bar and drink too much (or of course not), most likely on someone else’s dime, and then went home and probably implemented very little of what they heard/learned at the conference. I always came home from these things energized (and sometimes a bit hung over…) with a whole list of things to do, only to be hit with reality of my workload back at the ranch and if I could do one or two of those great things, I was a happy girl. To me, this conference business was quintessentially American.

So I was simply thrilled to find out I was going to get to spend two days at a conference. This conference was sponsored by a contracting authority for one of my nonprofits big grants – 494,000 BWP (Botswana Pula) which if you divide by 6.5 or so, tells you what we are talking about. This contracting authority happens to be the European Union and the Country of Botswana. Nothing to joke about.

I had to be on a bus at 6 or 6:30 a.m. to head to Gaborone for the conference.  Mind you, I had to come back each night on a 5:00 p.m. bus in order to get home by dark at about 6 p.m.  It is also dark here at 6:30 a.m., and cold as ____(fill in blank with the coldest thing you detest). But at 5 p.m. it is very warm and instead of being a cold and crowded bus like in the morning, is a hot and crowded bus.  On my return trip the last day of the conference it had heated up quite nicely. I kindly gave up my front row seat to a woman with a baby and found a seat midway back where I scared my first young child on this bus ride.  She was walking down the aisle with her mom, probably no older than 3 years old. She saw me, sitting in my seat with my sunglasses on and took two steps backward. The look on her face made me feel so bad to have been probably her first viewing of a white person.  Ah, if only I had been my younger, cuter version, it would have softened the blow, I am sure. I hope she isn’t scarred for life.

The bus was full, so people stood in the aisle next to me. The curtains were closed against the sun, the guy next to me was using more than his small allotted space and I was butt-dangling into the aisle. My genetic predisposition to claustrophobia started to kick in and I was provided an opportunity to practice a meditative moment to avoid screaming at the guy in the aisle who I was sure was purposely invading my space.

The purpose of the conferences was to walk all of us through our interim narrative and financial reports, which happen to be officially due July 1^st, since the 1^st 6 months of the 12 month contract ends on June 30^th. Woooahhh! How can you close a reporting period on one day and then file the report on the next?  Even in America we don’t do such things. But I guess in the EU they do. Apparently we were supposed to bring all our records - financial and otherwise - to the meeting where these very patient representatives of the EU would train us how to do the reports and then actually allow us to use the majority of the conference to do the reports with them there to help us. How cool is that?  A conference where you actually get some work done?

This is called capacity building, because many of the people at the conference run very small nonprofit organizations and this may be their first big grant. They have never used an excel spread sheet or organized their records according to how most granting agencies like to see things (i.e. cumbersome and bureaucratic). If we had simply been told to do it and sent home, we would have had troubles, but being able to sit there with our computers and go through the forms was a good way to teach everyone.

But Victor, my counterpart, our new fund development person Ralph, and I were mostly there for the heating and the food.  None of us were around when the initial training in January happened, so we had no idea what the meeting was going to be like and ahem…we didn’t bring all our financial files.  But we sat right under the output for the heating system and it was bliss. I actually took my down coat off. And my scarf and most certainly my hat and gloves.  Our office at Camphill has no heating or AC so we were happy just to be there.

Tea breaks are also serious business at conferences and meetings of any sort, so we enjoyed those, one at 10 and another at 3.  Literally and figuratively sandwiched between these breaks was a full blown buffet lunch.  Two salads, two starches, yummy veggies and three types of meat (chicken, beef, and uh, probably goat). And dessert.  I must confess, I was a glutton, but I wasn’t alone. Nobody here eats like this on a daily basis, and we all tried to act really nonchalant about it, but we was happy folk.

So we defrosted, ate, learned, ate some more, and worked for two days. I still came back with a list of great ideas, but these WILL be implemented in the next week, because we have an appointment at the Gaborone office to turn in our report and records and 494,000 BWP says so.

Once this report is in, I am going to look for some more conferences. The winter is just beginning and if they are anything like this last one, I will be warm, fed and productive.   I am also willing to accept any two of those three. I can’t wait to see who is meeting in the room next door.